Today's earnings were exceptionally abundant.
After the commissions were settled, the total income had already exceeded 220 gold.
After giving 30 gold to his teammates as their share of the reward, Kanzaki Rei still had 190 gold left.
For a child, this amount of money could already be considered an enormous fortune.
As expected—
As long as you had strength, making money was easy.
After completing ten commissions, it was only around dusk.
Rei could feel that his physical stamina today was slightly better than yesterday. Even after running around all day, he didn't feel particularly tired.
The Adventurers' Guild had noticeably become more crowded.
The teammates he had formed a party with today were planning to go for drinks to celebrate their gains.
For Tier-3 adventurers, earning 10 gold in a single day was already a rare achievement—even during the Harvest Month, when work was plentiful.
Not to mention earning it so easily.
Rei politely declined their invitation.
Right now, he was alone in Rhein Town. Although today's teammates had become somewhat familiar, they still hadn't built the kind of life-and-death trust that came from long companionship.
Under those circumstances, Rei had no intention of allowing himself to enter a state of drunken unconsciousness.
He glanced at the sky.
Nightfall and the stars were slowly being drawn across the heavens.
"…Forget it. I'll go practice some magic."
Rei rented a private training ground and continued grinding his spell proficiency.
At the same time, he practiced flying using ice lances.
If one didn't count the Monster Tide drawing adventurers toward the area…
Life here was actually rather uneventful.
There weren't any dramatic incidents or sudden dangers like one might imagine.
And so—
Ten uneventful days passed.
Every day, Rei bought a newspaper, checking for updates about the situation in the God-Burial Monument Valley.
A Tier-7 dungeon truly was dangerous.
Bad news arrived every single day.
At this point, only a handful of adventurer parties remained that hadn't been completely wiped out.
Iz's team was one of them.
Rei couldn't help them.
Other than tossing a coin each day as a prayer for their safety, there was nothing he could do.
By now, almost every spell he had learned had been trained to LV: 200.
Just as he had expected, once a spell completed its evolution, it could no longer increase in level.
They were all stuck at LV: 201.
Even [Void Realm], the mana-enhancement spell, had already reached LV: 200.
However, mana enhancement spells could not evolve.
In terms of magic development, progress had essentially stalled.
During these ten days, Rei spent most of the daytime accepting adventurer commissions, forming a stable party with Ross and the others.
They had cleared more than eighty Tier-3 dungeons.
They had slain over ninety Tier-3 Lord-level monsters.
They had also wiped out over thirty wilderness monster settlements.
Inside the Adventurers' Guild, many people stood staring at the monthly commission leaderboard.
At the top of the board—the Star of the Month—was a single name.
Kanzaki Rei.
One person.
In ten days, he had accepted more than two hundred commissions.
And every single one of them involved killing Tier-3 monsters, exploring Tier-3 dungeons, or exterminating monster groups.
Not a single small commission like "investigation," "harvesting," "collection," or "transportation."
Just the commission rewards alone had already exceeded 300 gold.
It was difficult to imagine how he had managed it.
On average, he completed over twenty commissions per day.
Even simply traveling between locations should have taken considerable time.
Even without relying on the reputation of Iz Palrut, Rei had already become a legend whispered among adventurers.
[Rhein Town Library]
Today, Rei didn't accept any missions.
The primary purpose of taking adventurer commissions had been to test his strength, increase spell proficiency, and grow accustomed to combat.
This world required fighting.
Rei didn't want to panic and behave like an idiot when faced with danger.
Another reason was to learn more about the world through adventuring and through conversations with teammates.
But now—
His spells were already max level.
He had accumulated plenty of combat experience.
He had explored numerous dungeons.
And he had already talked with those teammates about many things. At this point, there wasn't much information left he particularly wanted from them.
So there was no longer any need to keep accepting commissions.
"Yo~ Little Rei!"
"Not taking any commissions today?"
Inside the library, Ross spotted him and casually slung an arm over his shoulders, pressing her chest down against Rei's shoulder.
Ah.
The indebted healer.
"Hehe. I've taken commissions for too many days in a row. I figured I'd rest for a bit today," Rei replied smoothly.
Ross nodded.
"Fair enough. You have been adventuring nonstop for days."
"But this Monster Tide is getting stronger and stronger."
"I saw the weather report earlier—it said the Monster Tide concentration is almost reaching Level 5."
"If it keeps building like this, Tier-5 monsters might start appearing in the wilderness."
"That really would be dangerous."
Rei turned a page of his book and replied calmly.
A Level-5 Monster Tide, huh.
The wilderness was different from dungeons.
High-tier monsters rarely appeared in the wild. Most of the time, monsters outside were Tier-1 to Tier-3.
Around most towns, Tier-4 monsters simply didn't exist to hunt.
Those usually only appeared inside dungeons.
But Rei didn't treat Ross's words lightly.
Instead, he seriously continued flipping through Magic Advancement, while simultaneously thinking through possible countermeasures.
This wasn't a good sign.
Should he avoid the area?
A Tier-5 monster would be three entire tiers above him.
The chances of winning were extremely low.
The best option would probably be to hide somewhere safer…
And wait until the Monster Tide passed.
Rei casually asked,
"Big Sister Ross, are there any other towns nearby that are safer?"
Ross tilted her head and thought for a moment.
"Hmm… there probably isn't any place safer than Rhein Town."
"The kingdom's strong adventurers are all heading here. A Monster Tide of this scale definitely won't be ignored."
"And actually, Rhein Town already has several Level-5 adventurers now."
"If anything, leaving town right now is more dangerous—you could easily run into a fully-formed powerful monster out there."
"But with your strength, Little Rei, you could definitely survive against a Tier-4 monster~"
Ah.
So that meant Tier-5 monsters were still impossible, huh?
Rei calculated silently.
Let's see…
Iz and the others had said they would return in about half a month.
It had already been thirteen days since they left.
They should be back soon.
And during this time, several Level-5 adventurers had already arrived in Rhein Town.
In theory, the town itself was very safe.
If disaster struck, those strong adventurers would be the first ones fighting.
And if things somehow reached the town itself…
Rei would still have time to run away.
For the remaining few days, he might as well stay in town, read books, and rest.
At the same time, he could experiment with some of the new magical ideas he'd been thinking about recently.
Looking at magic through the mindset of someone from another world really did open unexpected paths.
"If you're resting today, Little Rei, Maizel and I are meeting another party to explore a Tier-3 dungeon."
"You don't mind, right~?"
Rei nodded.
"Mm. That's fine. Be careful."
Ross was quite capable.
Tier-3 dungeons weren't especially dangerous either.
Based on their experiences over the past few days, even if they encountered something they couldn't defeat, escaping wasn't difficult.
Ross waved goodbye and left.
After she walked away, Rei glanced briefly at her back.
A very lively healer.
Once you got familiar with her, she was by far the most talkative of the group.
The reason she was drowning in debt was simple.
She trusted people far too easily.
If someone tried to sell her something, it barely took any effort to convince her to buy everything.
So despite being a Level-3 adventurer capable of earning good money, she had purchased countless useless items—
A Defender's armor, a Warrior's sword, a Blacksmith's anvil, Assassin boots…
Heh.
It would be strange if she didn't go bankrupt.
As for Maizel…
After going adventuring during the day, he somehow still had the energy at night to manage two relationships simultaneously.
He dated two girls at the same time, yet neither of them discovered the other.
Sometimes he would even book a room with one girl, then come up with an excuse to leave and meet the other afterward…
Heh.
A true model of human scum.
Thanks to the money he had earned adventuring with Rei, he had plenty of gold to use as romantic leverage.
In the past few days, his relationships with both girls had progressed rapidly.
During their travels, he constantly told his romantic escapades out loud without the slightest embarrassment.
Of course, Ross and Trand never failed to express their disgust at his behavior.
Still—
No matter what, they were the first friends Rei had made in this world.
As for Iz and the others…
They felt more like half teachers, half friends.
Guides.
People who had shown him the way.
Rei spent the entire day in the library.
When evening came, he returned to the inn.
As he passed the Adventurers' Guild, he noticed a white notice posted on the wall.
Another group of adventurers had gone missing.
Before every adventure, people made countless preparations.
Yet accidents still happened.
Sometimes, adventurers who escaped by sheer luck would report to the guild that their teammates had died or disappeared inside a dungeon.
And the guild would post the missing list like this.
They called it "missing."
But in truth…
It usually meant they were already dead.
Very few ever returned.